US scientists have tested a vaccine that appears effective against a strain of bird flu that has killed at least 60 people in Southeast Asia since 2003, US newspapers reported on Sunday.

In a federally-funded study, 113 volunteers were injected with two doses of the vaccine, which produced an immune system response potent enough to neutralise the H5N1 strain of the virus, according to the Washington Post.

Today the Addendum at MR is “do not get too hopeful” about the news reports. Still, is this “virtually nothing”?

And for what it’s worth, governments are, as I recall, instituted among men to secure the rights to life, liberty and property against violation by other people. Terrorism qualifies. Flu, avian or otherwise, does not.